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[dracostella.livejournal.com]

I'm not writing enough angst lately, and my hands got itchy.



She was seventy-two years old.

"Ray, Ray, Ray," Fraser is calling my name, and I try to drag my eyes to him, but they are glued to the file in front of me.

She had a stand that sold bootleg videos near 5th Street.

A hand. Fraser's lays a hand on my shoulders, and I realize that I am shivering.

I busted her once when I was a rookie. Too green to realize that it wasn't worth shit that she was breaking the law.

"It's 3am, Ray." Fraser's voice is sounding all concerned, and I really should look at him. Make eye contact and all that shit.

She spoke broken English. When I busted her, she swore at me in Cantonese. She was spunky as hell; even kicked me in the chins.

Fraser's ushering me out of my chair and I still can't look at him.

Since then she always gave me a video when I passed by her. She said it was her pay off to me. To this day I haven't watched any of them. They were all in Cantonese.

Fraser is almost manhandling me out of the station, and I'm too tired to resist him.

She called me Kowalski even when I got this Vecchio gig. Every time I passed her, she'd yell at me to come over and get my pay off. Then she'd sneak a video to me like it was hundreds of dollars. And she'd say, "You press hard on me, Mr. Kowalski. But this all I got."

Fraser asks for my keys, and I hand them to him. He opens the passenger side car door first, and half shoves me inside.

I didn't tell her to call me Vecchio. No one paid attention to the old Chinese lady selling Cantonese videos.

Fraser is turning on the ignition, but he doesn't start driving. He's staring at me. I can feel his eyes on me.

I liked her.

"Ray, I understand you are angry," Fraser says all quietly.

They found her body naked, and wrapped in a transparent shower curtain in the back of an alley. Stabbed to death with a knife.

"No, Fraser, you don't understand! You don't fucking understand, okay?" I'm yelling. I know it's not his fault, but I'm yelling on the top of my lungs.

Welsh closed the case after a week. He gave me all the bullshit about how it was a stranger murder, about how we almost never solve them.

"I'm sorry, Ray," Fraser's voice cracks. I've never heard his voice crack so I finally look at him.

Welsh placed me on a senior account executive's robbery and assault instead. A fucking rich white guy who was scared shitless and can't even remember what race his attacker was.

Fraser's looking like me like someone just died. Fucking finally, someone's looking at me like someone just died!

Welsh looked at me like I was some weird social crusader.

And suddenly I'm sobbing. I'm sobbing 'cause it really ain't fair, and there is not a fucking thing I can do about it. Fraser just kind of holds on to me across the gearshift.